AFP:-

LONDON — Prime Minister Gordon Brown has written a personal letter to Aung San Suu Kyi, pledging his ongoing support for Myanmar’s pro-democracy icon and praising her courage.

Brown also reiterated his call for Myanmar’s military rulers to ensure elections promised for 2010 were free and fair, warning anything less would condemn the impoverished country to more hardship and isolation.

“If the scheduled elections proceed under a rigged constitution, with opposition leaders excluded and with no international oversight, the military rulers will be condemning Burma to more years of diplomatic isolation and economic stagnation,” he said in the letter released by Downing Street Tuesday.

The PM said Britain stood “immovably” with the Nobel peace laureate, and urged the regime to start a “genuine dialogue” with her.

“Your continuing detention is only the most visible evidence of the bad faith of a regime which has so far shown no signs of listening to regional or international calls for an end to its violent behaviour,” he said.

“I continue to call upon the regime to engage with you and allow you further contact with diplomats in Rangoon, and to start a genuine dialogue that can give the Burmese people back their future and their hope,” he said.

Brown’s letter has been passed to authorities in Myanmar — which has been under military rule since 1962 — by the British embassy in Yangon.

Aung San Suu Kyi has been locked up for 14 of the past 20 years and was ordered in August to spend another 18 months in detention after being convicted over an incident in which an American man swam to her house.

The extension of her detention sparked international outrage as it effectively keeps her off the stage for the elections promised by the regime some time in 2010.

If the polls go ahead they will be the first since 1990, when the junta refused to recognise her party’s landslide victory.

InTheNews Wednesday, 30, Dec 2009 02:37 : By Mike Trudeau.

Gordon Brown has written a personal letter to Burma’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi pledging his continuing support and praising her courage.

“Your continuing detention is only the most visible evidence of the bad faith of a regime which has so far shown no signs of listening to regional or international calls for an end to its violent behaviour,” the prime minister said.

“I continue to call upon the regime to engage with you and allow you further contact with diplomats in Rangoon, and to start a genuine dialogue that can give the Burmese people back their future and their hope.”

Although she was elected as prime minister in the general election of 1990, she had already been sentenced to house arrest. She has remained under house arrest in Myanmar for most of the last 20 years.

In August 2009 her sentence was extended by 18 months after American John Yettaw swam across a lake to her villa in Rangoon and stayed the night.

In November 2009 a Burmese politician said that Aung San Suu Kyi may be released so she could “organise her party” for the 2010 elections. However, he gave no details as to whether or not she would be allowed to campaign or stand for election herself.

Anna Roberts, the director of the Burma Campaign UK, said: “They’ve been saying these sorts of things for a long time but they have never delivered on them.

“The regime’s main concern is to get economic sanctions lifted and get approval for the sham elections next year.”